When Mexican police found a body in the woods it was burned beyond recognition, its DNA too damaged to be used for identification. Luckily, investigators were able to extract DNA from elsewhere - the digestive systems of maggots that had been feeding on the body. This is the first time that human DNA from a maggot gut has been analysed in this way to successfully identify a victim in a legal case.

Each individual sock comes with an RFID chip attached to the cuff. Stored on that chip is the sock's unique ID number. The Smarter Socks system also includes an RFID scanner, and a free iPhone app.

After a load of the socks have been washed, the user (or their maid, perhaps) scans the chip on each sock. The scanner sends the data by Bluetooth to the iPhone, which is running the app. That app proceeds to tell the user how old the sock is, whether it's for the left or right foot, how many times it's been washed, and which sock is its partner. Once its partner is located and scanned, the app updates the number of washings for the pair.